justice you can't run from
by Runaway Renegades
Summary: She learns along the way that she's never wanted to replace Sara, never wanted to be her, but still wanting to honor her, so she becomes the Black Canary. She becomes the justice you can't run from.


Laurel stares up at the ceiling, willing sleep to come even if she knows it's not going to happen – her mind is racing far too much for her to rest. Too much has happened, too much needs to be processed. Though if she's being honest, she's not sure she can wrap her head around all the shit that's happened to her.

She doesn't know how she could have been betrayed by her own sister like that, especially since Laurel had told Sara all about the plans she had for her and Oliver. She honestly thought maybe she and Oliver could build a life together, despite the crap from their past.

Laurel knew there had been other girls, knew his party boy stage well – she wasn't stupid. But she never thought he'd sleep with her own damn sister.

Maybe I am stupid.

There was a part of her that wonder if all of that trying to build a life together was pointless, that part of her knew that she should have stopped trying. She always knew there was a chance Ollie would never grow out of that playboy lifestyle of his.

But there was also that conflicting part of her, the part that always saw the best in everyone. Who saw the man underneath all the facade – the man that he could be. The man that she was trying to help him see.

To no avail.

She gives up on sleep and pushes the covers aside, pushing herself into a sitting position and swinging her legs off the side. She makes her way down the short hallway, to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Laurel makes her way towards the window, overlooking the city while slowly sipping her water, trying to come to terms with all her conflicted emotions. She's not sure how she feels, doesn't know how she should feel exactly.

Of course, there's that part of her that hates Oliver and Sara. But there's that part of her that will always care about the both of them, who misses them.

Is she angry? Yeah. Who wouldn't be pissed to find out that their boyfriend was screwing their sister?

Is she upset because they're gone? Yeah. Who wouldn't miss their little sister and childhood best friend turned more, who were both gone too soon?

Damn it.

"What is so wrong with me that everybody leaves?" she mumbles into the night.

Ollie. Sara. Her mother, her father.

Who else is there?

She tries to cope, as best as she can. The pain hurts, especially added to the regret, the anger, even the bitterness. But she tries, forces herself to act like everything's fine when that couldn't be furthest from the truth.

Her boyfriend's dead, her sister's dead, her mother left, her parents divorced, her father's falling into the bottle…

Yeah, Laurel Lance never saw her life heading down this path.

It gets easier, mostly, as days turn into weeks and weeks into months to pretend that she's okay. That throwing herself into her work, aiming to do some good for this city, save it even. That's why she became A.D.A, wanting to do some good, even for a city that doesn't want it.

"Dinah Laurel Lance. Always trying to save the world."

"Hey, if I don't try to save it. Who will?"

If only she can save her father…

"Maybe he doesn't want saving, Laurel." Tommy tells her one day, but she can't listen to him, won't listen to him.

Because she refuses to give up him, can't give up on him when he's the only family she has left. Even with his smartass and sarcastic comments when she was called to pick him up from a bar about being the daughter who survived. She refuses to believe that was anything other than the grief and the alcohol talking. Although, it does leave guilt on her shoulders, makes her feel worse than she did, adds to the grief, anger, guilt and self-blame she already feels.

It still doesn't stop Laurel Lance from trying. Nothing will.

Her dad may not want saving, but he needs it.

Laurel can't lose anyone else.

* * *

She thinks she's finally starting to get over Oliver or at least has pushed the emotions so far down that they stopped bothering her and she's happy with Tommy. It's taken five years to pick up the pieces and she hasn't felt this good in a while, has finally gotten her life back on track when she turns around and sees the news cast on the television.

Lost Billionaire Found

Oliver Queen discovered.

"Oliver Queen is the only survivor of a ship wreck that claimed the lives of seven people, those including locals, Robert Queen and Sara Lance."

She reaches for the remote and turns the television off, not giving it another thought, not needing or wanting to deal with it right now.

Not needing another slap in the face.

Oliver's return and conformation of being the only survivor just makes her sister's death all the more real. It also brings back all those conflicted feelings from years prior.

Laurel's reminded of the anger she felt when the Gambit first went down, reminded of how she couldn't properly grieve because of that anger. And she wishes it was the only way around – that it was Oliver's body at the bottom of the ocean, instead of her sister's.

The anger is still prominent the first time she sees Oliver when he stops by the CNRI office and she basically tells him to go to hell, even with his half assed apology.

Of course that 'half-assed' apology doesn't leave her, even after she storms away from Oliver. And she knows she shouldn't forgive him and she's not, not completely and not yet, but there's this thing between them. This thing that's always been there and is always going to be between them.

Ever since they were kids, it was always Laurel and Oliver.

And she knows that he's always going to be a part of her life, she may just start learning how to deal with it. So that's how she finds herself apologizing to him for what she said about wishing he was the one who was dead.

She knows they have a long way to go, but maybe this is a start.

* * *

Laurel starts feeling fine again, her life back on track for the second time. But she already knows that something is going to happen. Because how can her life just be normal? As normal as it can be with a hooded vigilante running around Starling that is.

A part of her just knows that something is going to be fucked up.

That part is proved right when the glades are leveled and completely destroyed in the undertaking, along with Tommy. That same part blames herself, knowing that Tommy was only there for her, to make sure she was okay.

His last words still haunt her.

"I love you."

The part that doesn't blame herself blames the arrow, for not saving Tommy, for not doing a better job at stopping the undertaking, stopping Merlyn. So she agrees with the D.A to bring him in, catch him before he does more damage to the city. That is until she figures out, from Slade Wilson of all people, that Oliver Queen and the arrow are one in the same. And she learns to realize that he did all he could and maybe, just maybe there wasn't a way to save Tommy.

Then Sebastian Blood shows up and Laurel knows that he's guilty, knows it in her gut, but of course she can't prove it. And even when she thinks she's close enough to finding something, they don't believe her because of the drug use and she gets fired.

That doubled with the alcohol and she realizes maybe she's not such a reliable source.

Of course, because her life is never easy and she can never have a break, her sister shows up, alive and well after six years. Six years, Sara let them think she was dead and she turns up and tries and act like everything is fine. When nothing that anger Laurel had when Sara went down with the gambit that she couldn't feel because Sara was dead comes back to the surface. And Laurel lashes out at Sara, hard. Blames Sara for everything that's happened to their family.

It all started the moment you got on that damn boat.

* * *

Laurel thinks back to an early conversation she had with Oliver when he returned, with a shitty apology and hoping she didn't blame Sara.

"How could I blame her for falling for your charms the same way I did."

Laurel was over the whole Sara and Oliver thing, or she thought she was and then Sara had brought Oliver to a family dinner, causing all those repressed feelings she never properly dealt with back to the surface. That and a part of Laurel did blame Sara for what happened to their family in the aftermath.

Laurel soon comes to terms with leaving the relationship drama in the past, wanting her sister in her life more than being pissed that Sara slept with her boyfriend. She also realizes that after some thinking, that Sara didn't make their mother leave because she couldn't handle losing a daughter. Sara didn't make their father turn to the bottle. They made their own choices and Laurel shouldn't place all the blame on one person.

Despite how pissed she didn't know she was.

Which is why Laurel ends up at Verdant's bar, asking for her sister back in her life. She's still angry, but she can work on that. They can work on it. Together.

And they do work on it and Laurel thinks they're finally getting back to something like how they had before. There's enough of a trust there that Sara confesses to Laurel that she's the canary – even if a part of Laurel had always assumed, always wondered, even knew. And it's Laurel who Sara gives the jacket to when she leaves town with Nyssa.

But then then Sara goes and dies in Laurel's arms and she lost her sister for a second time, just when they were repairing their relationship.

Everyone always leaves me…

* * *

It happens over time as Laurel battles her addiction, pouring all the alcohol in her apartment down the drain and throwing out the bottles. A small voice in the back of her mind that tells her that she can, even if she pushes it away.

But every time she puts on Sara's jacket, it returns.

And maybe it's a crazy idea, but she can't not stop thinking about it, putting it on, going out and honoring her sister in a way that she doesn't think that she actually could. But she has to try, right?

The next thing Laurel knows she finds herself going to a gym, asking to be trained. It takes weeks, months, sure she had self-defense classes, but this is different, is going to be different than anything else she's learned.

She doesn't give up even with all the things that tell her she should. Even with Nyssa's words at Sara's grave, even with Oliver's refusal to train her, even with that guy who put her in the hospital. She's not doing any of this for anyone's approval, she's doing it for herself.

And through her hard work and dedication, she feels ready to suit up and it feels great.

She learns along the way that she's never wanted to replace Sara, never wanted to be her, but still wanting to honor her, so she becomes the Black Canary.

She becomes the justice you can't run from.


End file.
